Following Nasrin: I'm done with AST too

[Arragomis]

I see you play astro at 60. and do not understand to play it. Might I suggest playing a different healing class? Maybe one that takes slightly less intelligence to play well? You use the cards you are given, yes they are random, a good astro knows how to put cards to use or knows when to hold them, or RR them. A good astro knows when its appropriate to Benefic1, or II just as a good whm knwos when to use 1 or 2 cure. However astro is a little more complex as you have to understand how every job not just your own works. YOu have to understand each dps and the cooldowns and what they do, you have to understand and prepare for raid damage, know the fight, know the mechanics and what comes when it does to prepare for it. More so than say whm or sch. You have less room for error and therefore it is not for everyone. GOod astro are amazing healers, bad astro are usually pretty bad too.

[Arragomis]

As for the upvote thing. I dont even pay attention I just give my opinion apparently someone agrees with said opinion.

[Nihility]

Well, speaking from years of experience, there is no such thing as a good hybrid in the Tank, healer, and damage dealer trinity. Damage can't be hybridized because any hybridization comes at the cost of damage, so DPS checks become a problem. Healing is in a similar boat, since it is just the opposite of damage. The roles would have to be very different to handle hybridization, which is why the trinity from WoW is not a good match for Final Fantasy with its never ending rainbow of jobs.

I have seen games with tanks that hold aggro from shouts and auras that buff and debuff instead of straight damage>aggro conversion work very nicely
I have also seen games with dps that have purposely weak output but buff/debuff through it that it ends up being a net gain for the group and desirable to bring one

It is very possible to do.
I have also seen the games with all sorts of healers from the rune buffs to the vampire style heal through damage to the need to keep lots of small HoTs constantly rolling with straight heals being cooldowns.

Astrologian really isn't a hybrid anything though. It is a healer that basically has a watered down white mage loadout
with an out of combat toggle that gives them an inferior regen, medica II, and asylum
or an inferior adloquiem, succor, and sacred soil

and if you think about it what exactly is gained over either other healer in the stances?
A White mage can cast stoneskin in a global cooldown for a better shield than nocturnal aspected benefic while having better regens than a diurnal aspect
a scholar's fairy is basically the ultimate regen spell while having way better shields than a nocturnal aspect
then they lose all the reliable utility and have the weakest damage output in exchange for the card system which feels like it is possibly weaker than selene's haste buff even if you assume nonstop perfect card draws

The solutions seem very clear to me. The card buffs need to be no contest clearly superior to any other classes utility to be worth the randomness
the stances need to be equally strong to other healers and feel different than just weaker version of corresponding class

my personal feeling is the only one that achieves that at all is diurnal benefic, granted it is pretty flawed compared to a standard regen but it's trying at least

[Vihalo]

Snip

Problem is: You can be the best player in the world, when you just draw ewers and spires and your group just doesn't have the need of it, well tough luck.
In Progress you do not want to count on RNG in a difficult fight. There is a reason why there where no Astrologian present at the world first kills of alexander savage 1,2 & 3.

[Neophyte]

I see you play astro at 60. and do not understand to play it. Might I suggest playing a different healing class? Maybe one that takes slightly less intelligence to play well? You use the cards you are given, yes they are random, a good astro knows how to put cards to use or knows when to hold them, or RR them. A good astro knows when its appropriate to Benefic1, or II just as a good whm knwos when to use 1 or 2 cure. However astro is a little more complex as you have to understand how every job not just your own works. YOu have to understand each dps and the cooldowns and what they do,you have to understand and prepare for raid damage, know the fight, know the mechanics and what comes when it does to prepare for it. More so than say whm or sch. You have less room for error and therefore it is not for everyone. GOod astro are amazing healers, bad astro are usually pretty bad too.

It's mathproofed, that AST can't keep up in meaning of buffs and healing with SCH. AST has about healing capacity like a SCH without Aetherflow-Stacks and buffs less (coz of RNG) than the fairy.

He's not bad for his own, but he's worse in every aspect (heal/shield output, dps buff, mana management) compared to SCH e.g.

You can't argue with that. If you want to, then name me common situations where good AST performs better than any other good healer.

[Leiloni]

You know why its funny? Because those people are ignorant and dont understand the class and what it brings to the party. double scholar is doable, as is double whm. But astro can compliment any healer if those healers work well together. Astro is not a job for anyone. it requires focus, patience, and an understanding of ALL jobs not just healing. By utilizing cards and quick timed heals the astro can help push parties by working with people on great timing of buffs. Using the right card at the right time is more important than just using a card. Just like using the right heal at the right time, if your over healing, your playinga stro wrong. its not a whm stop playing it like one.

Good points but people shouldn't be overhealing on WHM either...it's easier to overheal on a WHM but it's also easy to be bad and get by perfectly fine on a WHM.

As for the upvote thing. I dont even pay attention I just give my opinion apparently someone agrees with said opinion.

I've given you a number of upvotes because you've made some good points in some posts. Clearly I'm not alone in that. A lot of people here just want to whine because they can't take the time to understand the class and are using the fact that it's undertuned as an excuse for any and all problems they encounter. I mean for pete's sake we got buffs in the last patch, one being to our mana usage/conservation, and people are still moaning that we have mana problems. At that point it's the player, not the class.

It's mathproofed, that AST can't keep up in meaning of buffs and healing with SCH. AST has about healing capacity like a SCH without Aetherflow-Stacks and buffs less (coz of RNG) than the fairy.

He's not bad for his own, but he's worse in every aspect (heal/shield output, dps buff, mana management) compared to SCH e.g.

You can't argue with that. If you want to, then name me common situations where good AST performs better than any other good healer.

He didn't say they were better. He said they were capable and required more knowledge and skill than the other healers. He's right on both accounts. They'll get the changes they need. But at the moment they can do everything. I'm not sure why you're arguing a point he never made?

[DarkerOrange]

Really, AST requires more knowledge than SCH? Lol. It took me a day to learn the cards and another couple of days to learn when to use them and when to RR/Spread. There is very little to the class at the moment, and I really hope they change this, because I love the idea of AST.

Thing is, the people that are complaining are people who want to take their new favourite class into proper progression, but can't because it is sub-par and don't have team-mates to carry them. AST seems fine for everything else because 90% of the content in XIV is so easy that you could do it while hanging upside down being hit with a bat.

[Bovinity]

GOod astro are amazing healers, bad astro are usually pretty bad too.

The problem here is that even if you're right, it's irrelevant. No one is talking about whether or not the class is hard or easy to play. The discussion revolves entirely around what they bring to the table and how well they can perform.

Statements about player skill are meaningless because you're never including that in the equation when figuring the numbers on this stuff.

It's like hearing people discussing which car is faster, and you pop in with, "But a good driver could win a race with the slower car!!" which may or may not be true, but it's not what anyone is talking about.

[Vlady]

Problem is: You can be the best player in the world, when you just draw ewers and spires and your group just doesn't have the need of it, well tough luck.
In Progress you do not want to count on RNG in a difficult fight. There is a reason why there where no Astrologian present at the world first kills of alexander savage 1,2 & 3.

Because they prefer the tried and true method of what worked in previous raids of the white/scholar combo and didn't want to put up with uncertainty of the astrologian over a more familiar setup to help guarantee a world first. That far from invalidates the astrologian from being able to compete in all level of raid healing.

[Leiloni]

Really, AST requires more knowledge than SCH? Lol. It took me a day to learn the cards and another couple of days to learn when to use them and when to RR/Spread. There is very little to the class at the moment, and I really hope they change this, because I love the idea of AST.

What knowledge do you need to know to play SCH? Or WHM for that matter?

I'm assuming he's referring to a few things with the AST. For one you need to learn how best to use your spells to maximize healing and mana efficiency. For anyone who played 2.0 WHM I think that's probably second nature at this point but I've seen enough complaints and comments to realize that not everyone is playing the best or finds this intuitive. A lot of people complain that AST has mana issues when it doesn't, and the lack of good healing CDs right now means we have to make the most of what we have. For some that's harder to figure out when they're used to boosting their healing by massive amounts with one easy I win button. When you're lacking vital skills, you have to come up with creative ways to achieve the same results.

As for the cards, you need to know what classes to use certain cards on and what cards they don't want. Knowing who benefits most and what the best use of each card is will definitely differentiate a good AST from a bad one. This requires more knowledge of how other classes play as well as knowledge of the fight. One example is Spear - so many people say it's useless when it really isn't. Your tanks are an obvious choice, but you also have DRG and NIN with a lot of oGCD's that would love this card (and they also generally don't like Arrow, so don't just assume every dps will love that one). Sure having people in voice chat would be great, but you can also pop it on one of them at the start of a pull before they pop all their CDs (ideally a dps to avoid getting aggro by giving the tank a buff as he pulls), or before a burst phase where you know your dps are going to pop CDs, or a heavy hitting phase where you know your tank is using CDs, or at the start of a big pack of mobs on your tank so his CDs are back up faster.

SCH and WHM have easier mana management and enough CDs that they're easier to do well with, along with the fact that they don't really need to know how other classes play as much in order to maximize their own play.

The problem here is that even if you're right, it's irrelevant. No one is talking about whether or not the class is hard or easy to play. The discussion revolves entirely around what they bring to the table and how well they can perform.

Statements about player skill are meaningless because you're never including that in the equation when figuring the numbers on this stuff.

It's like hearing people discussing which car is faster, and you pop in with, "But a good driver could win a race with the slower car!!" which may or may not be true, but it's not what anyone is talking about.

Actually player skill is very much relevant. If you're talking about what the class is capable of, then you don't listen to a bad player. If you know a class is able to do certain things then you look to the players that have already achieved those things. For example there's a post on Reddit with a WHM asking for help with big pulls in level 50 dungeons, saying he's tried all these things and can't do it. That doesn't mean the WHM can't handle big pulls, it just means this player hasn't figured out how to do that yet.